Many people feel Christmas simply wouldn’t be Christmas without carols, and carol singers.

The word carol means “song of joy”, and the very first were not part of the Yuletide celebrations but were actually pagan tunes, sung to mark the Winter Solstice – the shortest day of the year, which usually fell on or about December 22.

King's College Chapel carol service on TV in 1967

The songs were taken up by minstrels and troubadours and spread far and wide, and some towns, such as Cambridge, got their own official carol singers. These singers were called Waits, because they were only allowed to perform on Christmas Eve, which was known as Waitnight or Watchnight – the night when the angels appeared to the shepherds watching their flocks.

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Cambridge is famous around the world, of course, for the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols in King’s College Chapel. The service was first held on Christmas Eve in 1918, and broadcasting began 10 years later. Since then, it has gone out on the airwaves every year, with the exception of 1930, and even took place during the Second World War, when all the chapel’s ancient glass had been removed for fear of enemy bombing raids.

King's College carols procession, 1980

In fact there are two services, one broadcast on the radio, and another, slightly shorter one on TV, which first came to the screen in 1963.

Long queues form the day before the famous service, and in 1975, there were ungodly scenes when about 30 people jumped the queue, scaled the chapel fence and tried to grab the best seats. They were ejected by a small army of porters, some of them recruited from other Cambridge colleges.

Queueing for King's College carols, 1982

But the King’s service is only one of many festive music events in our region. Churches have organised their own carol concerts for many years, sometimes in collaboration with local schools.

Another abiding image – and sound – of Christmas is the sight of the Salvation Army bands town centres.

Christingle service at Ely Cathedral, 1988

And Ely Cathedral is also famous for its Christingle service, inaugurated many years ago to raise money for the Church of England Children’s Society. In exchange for donations, children and adults were given a Christingle – an orange, representing the world, and a candle, representing the Light of the World.

As lovely as carols are to sing and to listen to, some of them tend to stretch the truth a little, as a Cambridgeshire vicar pointed in the News in 1978.

We Three Kings, the Rev Brian Watchorn correctly reminded people, were actually not kings, but the Magi – astrologers. And In The Bleak Mid Winter was an unlikely time of year for shepherds to be outdoors with their sheep.

Leys School carol singers, 1973

Our archive photos here show the King’s service in 1967 and 1980, people queueing overnight for a seat in the chapel in 1982, carols singers from the Leys School in 1973, and a Christingle service at Ely in 1988.

The other picture is from 1965, and features a popular tradition in Cambridge at that time – going around the city carol singing on horseback.

Santa is coming, and we’re all getting very excited about it, aren’t we?

Father Christmas at Ely Palace School, 1974

Back in 1974, the white-bearded one here is paying an early visit to Ely’s Palace School, to dish out gifts to disabled pupils there.

And in 2001, a celebrity cricketer is getting into the Christmas spirit on C2, the children’s ward at Addenbrooke’s Hospital. With the hospital’s then chief executive Roy Male, former England batsman Mike Gatting is doing the honours and handing over presents to the young patients.

Mike Gatting at Addenbrooke's, 2001

Also back in the Seventies, 1971 to be precise, the Christmas tree has arrived in Burleigh Street, for erection outside the old Cambridge Co-op department store there – now, of course, where Primark is located.

Co-op Christmas trees in Burleigh Street, 1971

Festive fancy dress is the order of the day in 1962 at Christchurch in Cambridgeshire, where the village pageant is being staged. The costumes are great, and most readers will no doubt remember those little paper lanterns on sticks, made from folded, cut-up coloured paper and a piece of bamboo?

Christchurch pageant, December 1962

We also feature two former Mayors of Cambridge here, one in 1960 trying his hand at changing the points (or is it the signals?) at the railway station; and the other, in the early Noughties, offering tea and cake to members of local voluntary organisations at the Guildhall. Get in touch if you are able to fill in any further information.

Mayor tours the railway, 1960

Volunteers meet the mayor

Vic Phillips has been in contact to relate his recollections of a day on the beat as a bobby in Cambridge, in 1969.

In Petty Cury, he came across a young man he knew well for his past criminal activities, and suspected him of having stolen a wage packet from a man’s jacket.

Vic said: “There were actually two wage packets in the pocket, and when I asked him why he hadn’t taken them both, he said: ‘The other packet was his holiday pay, and you can’t nick a man’s holiday pay, can you?’”

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Scenes of Cambridge streets in the 1970s, and the stories behind them, feature in a new collection of prints.

Four decades ago, writer and artist Simon Bor completed a series of sketches of parts of the city and for the past five years, on and off, he has been working on creating etchings and linocut prints of them.

The results, which are stunning, are out now in a book, Cambridge Lost In Time, available via Amazon.

Bateman Street, by Simon Bor

One of the prints features Bateman Street, where in 1979 Simon was involved in a campaign to save some houses from being demolished.

He said: “I moved to Cambridge with my family in 1967 and my mother still lives in the same house in Glisson Road. I went to the art school that is now Anglia Ruskin, where I was introduced to printmaking. After a long career in animation for children’s television, I’ve returned to printmaking.

“I was involved in a campaign to save seven houses in Bateman Street in 1979. We were partially successful, as three of them are still standing today.

“In all, the book includes 11 prints, along with sketches, and the personal story behind each one of them.”

Simon now lives in Devon with his wife Sara, and they’re both well known for their projects for children’s TV, such as Tube Mice, Binka, Grizzly Tales for Gruesome Kids and Witches & Giants, which have been sold to more than 100 countries worldwide. More about him is online at simonbor.co.uk.